


The Price of Knowing

by Lancelot_Chronicler



Series: Introductions from the Eternal Nexian Multiverse [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Eldritch, Fantasy, Horror, Magic, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Other, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26023498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancelot_Chronicler/pseuds/Lancelot_Chronicler
Summary: The Eternal Nexian Multiverse is my personal little realm of possibilities; a place I've written many a story in throughout my life. Through these introductions I hope to get you, the reader, acquainted with my strongest champions and my darkest demons. I have spent a life time creating whole worlds and civilizations... and I can't wait to share them all with the world~.In this, the first of many, we meet Lancelot the Chronicler. As the ever-present watcher I thought it fitting to introduce the one who records all the events within the realm first!"Walk when you can, run when you can't".
Series: Introductions from the Eternal Nexian Multiverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888882
Kudos: 1





	The Price of Knowing

The low hum of a stealth modified engine filled the ears of twenty spec-op soldiers as they tore through the black night sky, an international group had assembled last minute to retrieve something from the deepest part of a lab where the most dangerous research in the world was conducted. A sort of fort Knox for the worst bio-weapons, radioactive material and, if the report was to be believed, paranormal artifacts.

The leader of this group, Major Daniel, had been chosen particularly because of the last possibility. He was a formerly retired veteran who was dismissed because his sanity came into question after a raid on a temple. It was thought to be the staging ground for releasing a lethal chemical agent which killed everyone in his squad save for him. He put sole credit to his survival entirely on listening to a “voice” in the air after reading some script on the temple walls.

He and a new recruit, Dr. Gwen Simmons, were the only non-military personnel on the mission, both for their expertise and experience in a field the rest of the group did not even believe in.

Daniel sighed and spun a little holographic map of their infiltration point, tracing the route from there to the server room. After leaving the retrieval team at the first sample room and heading down to the deepest floor, with his personal trio of backup and the good doctor, they would activate an implosion bomb. It would reduce the bunker, and all but the surface of the mountain atop it, into a smoldering pit of stone and slag.

Quickly checking his watch Daniel motioned for Dr. Gwen to ready her gear and turned to the escort personnel. His features were wiped clean of any discernible emotion, and as he spoke Gwen honestly found it easy to see a different person entirely then the one who had been pensive and quiet moments ago.

“Main target is at the bottom of the Labyrinth, subsection 57 and four miles under ground. Once we descend we will be cut off from the main grid and will rely entirely on internal scanners and our own gear so by the book. No gaggle-fucking in the hallways, always leave two personnel on either side of the hallways and check ceilings. Some of the experiments are multi-terrain capable and HIGHLY LETHAL so do NOT forget to sweep each corner TWICE, copy?”

“Sir!”

The sounds of magazines being locked into place quickly filled the room and startled Gwen from her focus, a secondary jolt came when Daniel snapped a pair of clips to the back of her strap and readied for the jump.  
  
“Are you sure this is safe?!” Gwen called as an alarm honked three times before the tail of the plane opened in front of her. A blast of suction startled for her a third time in rapid succession and had Gwen flustered well beyond her comfort zone. Beyond the ramp it was pitch black save for some headlights far off in the distance, but she could still tell they were incredibly high.

Daniel smirked, hoisted the doctor by their straps and ignored her rapid protests as he jumped off the plane. This was the easy part, the descent. Getting out was going to be the real fun. After a smooth landing, only halted by Gwen losing her lunch the moment she touched ground and they detached, the group moved toward the only above ground entrance for ten miles and breached inside with thermite strips.

Once in the group moved quickly, descending first by elevator down several miles for nearly twenty minutes. It was an awkward descent, some men reported hearing chittering or seeing movement along the walls but it wasn't until the elevator finally stopped and opened that they got their first look at what the situation was. Insects as large as mid-sized breeds of dogs scurried about, fleeing the light of the soldier's gear, but two soldiers opened fire before they could all scatter.

A general wave of disgust and nervous shuffling broke out as the soft clicks of each weapons safety being clicked off. Several complaints muttered in different languages under the balaclava's most men wore solidified the thought everyone was too afraid to admit to themselves; this mission was going to claim casualties.

A quick comparison to a list of experiments down there revealed that the bugs were not part of the lab.

“It's just like Paris all over again...” Gwen mumbled as she looked over one of the dead insects. “Massive wild-life, no sign of origin, and mass visual hallucination-”

“No offense doc, but I'm pretty sure it's just something they didn't want to list on this stupid report,” she was cut off by a soldier covered from head to toe in tactical gear with only his eyes uncovered. The rest of his face wrapped in a black balaclava, “Typical S.O.B.s for these kinds of missions.”

Some of the soldiers closest to the one who spoke all grunted and nodded in agreement, the moment one of them tried to override fear with guts it broke some out of their white-knuckling. Gwen wasn't convinced though, turned to directly face the soldier and locked eyes with him as she spoke.

Gwen's lips tugged to a nervous smile as she flipped through the list and stopped at the end mission objective. “You see this?” She pointed to a folder that was highlighted in purple and its text font was in bright, shimmering silver. “You ever see a classification folder with _colour_ , soldier?”

There was a long pause, Daniel motioned for the group to press on and they did, but not without several of them checking their own data-pads to confirm that it did indeed have a colour code. Daniel was the first to speak, peeking at his motion detector on his inner forearm while staring down the sights of his weapon as well.

“So what's the colour mean? Super classified?” a few of the guys chuckled at this.

Looking up to scan the area with her flashlight Gwen could tell that the place had not see much traffic. The walls were almost completely clean save for the bullets and fragments of carapace from the soldiers killing the insects. It was dark though, only a singular string of lights on the left side illuminated the whole hall and even that was broken at random intervals, doing a poor job of actually providing meaningful illumination.

Gwen shook her head and sighed, dragged the menu up so the name of the file was visible and sent a screenshot to the others. “We have over dozens of systems for classifying dangers; chemical, energy, man-made, nature, A-B-C etc, etc- but this is... It's labeled Qliphoth.”

“What in the fuck does Qliphoth mean?” a soldier asked as he looked over the picture. No sooner had he said the word did the lights in the already dim hall go dim. Everyone turned on their night-vision. Quick movement herded Gwen and Arthur into the middle of the group with three soldiers while the rest formed a perfect circle around them. Weapons swept around, everyone's tension returned and several soldiers finally got a good look at the bugs.

They didn't look like anything natural. Each possessed a layer of shifting ruby shell with a raised texture, and their blood was black with silver flecks of dancing light as the soldiers shone their flashlights on them. It was like glitter within polished tar. Somehow it was only now that the smell hit their senses, causing several men to wretch and one to outright vomit. After a moment to cut off his ruined face mask the group resumed, some even took antacids or emergency nausea suppressant medications to maintain a level composure as they moved on.

With the end of the hallway in sight Daniel looked over to Gwen and nudged her with an elbow to get her attention. “Qliphoth is some kinda 'shell of evil', init Doctor?” Daniel asked as they finally came to the massive bulkhead doors that led into the laboratory proper.

Gwen jumped as she was startled out of her own hyper-focused state, shooting Daniel a glare that felt like daggers pressed against the man's throat. An apologetic look from Daniel did nothing to abate her ire as the doctor pursed her lips in annoyance. “That it is, the Hebrew believed it to be the opposite of God and all things good.” Gwen's words echoed out despite trying to be quiet, speaking in a hushed tone and barely moving her lips.

“So what in the hell do they have down here with _that_ for a label?”

The doors swung open slowly. Damp, cool air rushed past the group filled with a moldy staleness that didn't dissipate. Everyone was making faces and groaning about the smell, but Daniel and Gwen were listening keenly. Both of them had thought that the small _tictictic_ they were hearing came from bugs scampering around, but as the doors swung wide and opened fully, everyone heard it.

“Likely whatever is causing these bugs to get so big?”

Daniel's voice echoed out several times into the hallway beyond, but no one answered. Everyone had trained their weapons inside, the grim sight beyond the doors was horrible and in spite of the precautions from earlier the same soldier lost his lunch once more. Poor Tom was not doing so well on this mission. Bodies lay strewn about with limbs detached, some flayed flesh from skin, some looking like they had been phased half-way through a wall with the other half still on the other side when they became whole again. If the gory sight before them wasn't enough there was a cicada-like groan and chirp softly echoing out to greet them, right before the smell did.

No one spoke, everyone focused up as they moved forward and assumed a proper formation with the Doctor in the middle of the group. Deathly silence gripped the group as they moved toward the first lab, boots squelching and splashing in pools of blood and gore, and though none said it out loud they all noticed that the cicadas were getting louder.

As the group came to the first door Gwen used the minimap of her datapad to tell Daniel to let her up front. She had the access codes and it was safer if she entered the code and the group swept the room first. Groaning in disgust Gwen used her sleeve to wipe some thick, viscus goop off the screen only for Daniel to offer a rag to clean herself off with moments later. “My _hero_ ,” she said, voice laced with sarcasm while she cleaned up.

The code worked, green lights lit up the bar across the door and it slid open. Six men rushed into the room, clearing the place before finding the lab's local power bank and activating the emergency lighting. The lightning did nothing to improve what they saw, only revealing the true horror. But it did make it safer to move around.

As Gwen and Daniel moved into the room the two of them could have sworn they heard one another asking for help from further away, both turned first to each other, then toward the distance to make sense of the source with no success. In the back of the room Gwen noticed a pile of bodies trying to cover something. A quick glance to her datapad said that this was what they were after in this lab and, from the information about the container, was live cargo.

Several men looked between themselves and at the pod, all muttering similar statements of 'sir?' or 'huh?' as if someone had spoken to them _just_ too quiet to make out the words but loud enough they knew they were being addressed. After several long moments of everyone denying they were the ones to speak Daniel ordered the station be cleaned of gore so the good doctor could asses the situation.

Gwen couldn't watch as the soldiers removed gore, bodies and blood from the console. The sounds alone were enough to have her already planning out a therapy session with her psychiatrist, but the men worked quickly. None of them wanted to be there any longer than they had to, Tom least of all.

Under the mass of flesh and bone sat an active stasis pod with someone inside. Gwen and Daniel couldn't make out who it was, but they figured from the limbs embedded into the console that someone had been trying desperately to keep whatever killed all the scientists from getting at the occupant.

A soldier came from behind the chamber and waved a little wireless dongle to Daniel and motioned to the pod, “We can remotely deactivate the pod with the access codes Command gave us, want us to wake them and find out what the hell happened?”

Daniel nodded while Gwen gingerly took the edge of a cloth from her pocket and wiped down what remained of the screen. A temperature readout was all that remained, “600 degrees?” She shook her head and sighed, it must have been damaged. As the soldier who had been messing with the wireless dongle finally gained access however, Gwen watched the temperature _drop_ instead of rise, whacked the side of the panel and sighed.

“This thing is totally useless, we won't be getting any data from the terminal. I suggest we leave the main team here as planned to catch up with whoever is in here and prep them to leave. What do you think Daniel?” She forced her voice to stay steady, clearing her throat at the end and adjusting her stance so she would at least appear a little more in control of her emotions than she currently found herself. Inexplicably the longer she remained close to the pod she found herself increasingly more anxious, paranoid, and lonely.

Daniel just pursed his lips, not once had he heard a voice and it bothered him much more than he wanted to admit. “Yeah, so far it's been routine so let's keep with the plan. If this person is all we need to grab from here then let's move on. We're ahead of schedule. I like being ahead,” he said with a firm nod, motioning to the door.

Daniel called for his and the Doctor's escort to gather up, the same trio from before comprised of Russian brothers named Demitri, Vadim and Alexei. Daniel had done a handful of missions with them, they had met Daniel after their own similar encounter with the paranormal. They discretely agreed that Daniel's tales made more sense than the cover-ups his superiors came out with, so he didn't have to worry about explaining if anything weird started happening. He just had to give them instructions. A very useful thing to depend on should the paranormal decide it was time for some Exorcist-level shenanigans.

Alexei and Demitri were built like tanks, each six foot, four inches tall and broad while Vadim was the runt of the litter at five foot ten. All of them bore scars in various places and had a lot of “home-brew” equipment, custom knuckle-dusters and big knives, a few illegally modified firearms or explosives... And a couple bottles of vodka. Everything except the vodka was optional, far as the brothers were concerned.

“Alexei you take front with me, doctor Gwen you stay between us, Vadim and Demitri take up the rear, you know the routine, check your corners and all that. Alexei you have the radio, check in with the crew up here periodically so we know the status of our cargo for exfil. I don't want any surprises on our way back up.” He paused, glanced down at the bloodied hallway beyond and exhaled deeply.

“I've had enough of those for one mission already.”

The trio all chuckled and assumed the formation as the whirring hiss of the stasis pod opening echoed from the room, which caused Gwen to jump. She had come up behind hurriedly after he gave the signal for her to group up. Daniel gave her a reassuring glance and pointed to the chamber. She swore under her breath at the little jump-scare, but couldn't get her heart beat under control. It was beating harder, slight aches bloomed in her chest and she noticed Daniel reaching to rub his as if he was experiencing a similar pain. They exchanged a concerned glance before a hand rose out of the mist in the chamber and the occupant began to sit up.

The person inside the pod had been a woman, an _elf_ of all things if her over a foot long ears, thin limbs and powerful physique was to be believed. Just as the group was preparing to leave both Gwen and Daniel locked eyes with the elf woman, smiling at the two she called out;

“Thank you for waking me, Oļ̴'̢҉͝Tơ͏h̨rn be ͢pŗa͠i̧̨s҉e͝d”.

When the woman spoke her words came out distorting at the end, reality pixalating around her. Daniel and Gwen's mind went into shock at the rush of static and warped mental imagery, the woman before them appeared floating over an ocean of blood and meat with a trio of long, crimson scaled tails that easily reached several feet in length each. They looked like massive tentacles coming from her back, writhing and coiling about around her feet. Her thick tentacles splashing about and assumed a more supportive position, propping her up much higher so she could stare down at the two. No longer just an elf, some anthropomorphic canine with oval scale patches on its shoulders, her forearms and hips glistened a deep scarlet red with a soft shimmer of silver dots which shone just beneath the surface. Like some cosmic canine and eldritch monstrosity it loomed down over the pair, easily ten feet tall, and somehow they both knew it was _painfully_ hungry.

Daniel grabbed Gwen by the shoulder, turned her to face away from the creature and shouldered his rifle before shouting at her to run. She didn't need to be told twice and bolted for the nearest chunk of rubble she could hunker down in. She needed time to observe to be useful in a fight, unlike Daniel who had opened fire without even waiting for Gwen to be under cover.

Bullets popped off rapidly while the creatures limbs swung like anacondas from the vine, some slapping the bullets right out of the air while others just floated between him and the main body of the creature to protect it. When his magazine ran out Daniel quickly prepared to fire a round from the under-barrel grenade launcher. It was supposed to be a fail-safe to fire into the bottom of the shaft against the main support beam that would ensure the place was leveled, but if he couldn't survive the next few moments that would be the last of his problems. A quick second-guess and he reloaded his magazine to resume firing, narrowly dodging tails as they swung for him.

“Ting- _tang~_ , bing- _bang_ ~” the sing-song voice of the creature echoed out many times after it spoke, distorted replications of her voice giggling out like a mad hyena, mocking how ineffective the bullets were. “Do not resist, Ol'Tohrn are ALL!”

That name again, Gwen's mind felt like it was being split open. Something was actively trying to get _in_ to her head and no amount of scratching and clawing at her own skull could abate the pressure building. She clawed with enough intensity that a tuft of hair with bloody roots still attached and a bit of scalp, causing her to shake and tremble as adrenaline and shock began to set in.

Just as she felt like she couldn't take any more, the over-stimulated buzz of her mind starting to feel like static would envelop her entire being, a palm gently cupped one cheek and the pressure suddenly vanished. Gwen looked up, tear-soaked eyes bloodshot with strain focused on the soft features of a beautiful pale elf woman with auburn hair and eyes of solid sapphire... no pupils.

Both the rage and spite coming from Daniel and the fear and hate coming from Gwen felt as if it were draining their energy rapidly. With her eyes fluttering in and out of consciousness as the creature and elf smiled eerily down at them both Gwen and Daniel pieced together that she was draining them of their energy, the more they fought, the more it drained. It was making motions as if it were guiding something unseen from them, into itself.

It was _feeding_ on them _._

“Do not _cry_ , child... All will be pleasure within the Ol'Tohrn~” she cooed with a soft, sweet voice. But it did nothing to lessen the slam and stab of pain returning to the top of Gwen's skull with a vengeance. Gwen tried to pull away from the woman but she found her hand stuck fast at the skin, like it had been glued. Panic set in once again and her hands dove into her pockets for anything to cut herself loose with, trembling fingers clasping around a bone handle of the dagger her father had gifted to her on her 16th birthday. A small Damascus blade only seven inches long, but when she drew it, the beasts eyes widened.

While Gwen drew her blade Daniel burned through his last magazine. The thing had been taunting him about how his weakness would be fixed in _something_ , but he couldn't remember what it said. Every time he heard the name it left his mind as fast as it came, but not without leaving a feeling of a mind too full of thoughts to properly keep his composure. It was like knowing their name was too much for his mind, and in his panic he readied the Entrenching round. The shell tipped with forged Damascus steel.

Daniel fired as Gwen slashed, the Entrenching round blew through each fold of those tentacle-like tails as if they were paper mache and embedded itself into the beasts skull. Gwen stabbed it through where she thought its heart would be, and for good measure twisted the blade as hard as she could! Both versions of the creature shrieked and screamed in agony as the world around them began to shudder and collapse, abruptly ending with blackness that slowly brightened into the hallway leading deeper into the facility.

As quickly as the haunting visage had appeared, it vanished. Though he was certain he had spent well over ten minutes wherever the hell they had been, Daniel's watch said it had only been 66 seconds. Daniel and Gwen found themselves in some tunnel with no sign of the research room or the elf woman, but both of them jolted enough to cause the brothers alarm, drawing weapons and looking around every inch of the corridor they could see.

“Scan?” Alexei looked to his brothers who all nodded and detached their packs while Gwen and Daniel looked around, frantically trying to ensure they were indeed in reality now.

“Did you see that thing?!” Gwen exclaimed in a hushed yell at Daniel, who nodded and looked around at the brothers quizzically.

“Don't worry, you vent very still. Heard weird noise come from strange elf lady so we keep our mouths shut. We figure its' control veaken if we play along and just leave,” Dimitri's said with a bit of a tap to the side of his nose.

“You've seen something like this before?” Daniel asked as Dimitri began waving a small metal rod attached to what looked and sounded like a Geiger counter, one that was clicking like mad.

“ _Dah_ , and it's not good. You have its energy all over you, IN you, hear this _clk-clk-clk_? Means you were... somewhere else. Somewhere not good. How you say... 'belly of the beast'?” Vadim produced a small vial and popped open the top near the two after a quick shake. A tiny, nearly invisible film around the two burst into a thin layer of fire, quickly flickering away harmlessly after a briefly warm flame. The sense of dread and hunger returned to the pair as the mist coalesced into little ethereal hooks which latched into their faces and hands that led back down the tunnel.

Toward the Elf.

Each brother worked to quickly detach the hooks and watched as they melted into nothingness, retracting back as a haunting little lament of a cry rose up to meet them. As if weights had been hoisted off their shoulders both Daniel and Gwen felt a rush of energy return to them, colour returned to the world too. Neither had really noticed until it came back that the world had literally looked bleaker. The brothers didn't seem too surprised.

“Dere were things in the village we were told _**NYET**_ , did not happen!” Vadim called out as he brought a small stick of beef jerky out for the two of them. “Superiors say we crazy, no such thing as dog with snakes tails, but we had proof.”

The smallest of them all, Vadim was by far the most studious of these weird beasts and produced a small vial teal fluid with flecks of silver floating inside. “We find this, it's radioactive and trying to talk. _In old Morse code._ We find this creature wants to eat, to ahh.. consume reality?” he paused, looking back to his brothers who nodded.  
  
“It's big bastard bitch. Terrible _cyka, evil creature_. Romanian's fought it for years, dis was... all that they managed get. Many think creature dead but now I not so sure,” Vadim pursed his lips and waved the jerky at them more insistently. “EAT! It drained your body, your soul was inside it. You need strength!”

Both Gwen and Daniel took the jerky with skeptical looks, but tore into it ravenously the moment the smell of the salted meat hit their senses. Daniel looked at Vadim while they walked as if he had some revelation he needed to say, but his mouthful of jerky prevented it.

“Hungry? Dah, it will do that.”

Hunger wasn't the word for it, Daniel glanced over at Gwen who was busy tearing into her own snack with the fervor of a staving animal, not that he was any different. It was as if everything inside them had been yanked out, leaving a massive void of nothingness in their core. It was getting easier to ignore the more they ate, but Gwen had already grabbed her Damascus dagger and was holding it close to her chest while she ate.

The group had stopped at the final elevator so they piled on in, the brothers took the ride down to explain about the creature they suspected to find deeper down. What Gwen and Daniel had seen the two said came from an old Romanian folk tale. The _Zburator_ was a creature with canine features that would apparently steal into rooms at night and have their way with pretty much anyone they fancied, or so the legends told. Shapeshifter demons who's sightings were typically followed by a massive explosion in births.

Dimitri offered Gwen and Daniel the brother's notebook so the pair could examine the information they had on the creatures, Gwen was fascinated at the inconsistency of the sightings. Some called them benevolent and kind while others scorned them and cursed their very name.

On the way down Daniel ordered a check-in with the first group, the voice he had heard on his previous mission was whispering quite loudly now and he didn't want to come back up to a group full of hypnotized and well-armed soldiers. It was fairly routine according to the first team, the Elf had been sealed inside to protect her from whatever was happening in the lab, but some of the men had started to report hearing a voice. Some had also reported seeing some of the dismembered limbs twitching, some outright flexing. Daniel ordered they take up a defensive position with the bulkhead door to the lab closed until they returned; no sense in speculating over the radio and if whatever happened there was about to restart, a sealed room was their best bet.

“Why did some people _like_ these things?” Daniel asked as the elevator clunked to a halt. Dimitri shrugged and pointed to some of the transcribed conversations the brothers had with locals. Some said the beast came to them in their dreams, others said they watched as their bodies moved and spoke while they felt like a passenger in their own mind. What was most peculiar was that every encounter with these creatures was always localized where faith was a strong pillar of the community. Belief seemed to attract them.

Well-oiled bearings and properly functioning equipment let the doors soundlessly roll open, a soft ding and a little PA voice announced their floor. The hallway beyond was in immaculate condition, well lit and incredibly clean smelling. All five cautiously and without a word entered into the weirdly calm and clean section until the initial sweep was complete.

“Daniel. What is chance of this? Damage upstairs is excessive, this is... not?” Vadim pipped up as he shouldered the stock of his weapon and began moving forward. He was squinting, licking his lips as he focused intently on the hallway before them.

“Zero. If this was some kind of airborne problem, even less so. This place recycles air from the same source the upstairs halls do as well.” Daniel's reply came quick, raising the tension of the group even more and causing Vadim to take a large swig from his plain metal flask.

The group also noticed that a voice, all of them finally asking if the rest were hearing the same thing, was taking on the sound of a loved one or someone they couldn't save calling out for their help. It was eerie, no matter how far they moved it always seemed to be in another room, calling from afar.

With no blood or body parts covering labels on doors or the well painted guiding lines on the floor the group found the final holding room quite easily! Everything was still working perfectly down here, though it seemed completely evacuated.

When Daniel approached the final door they all expected the same on the inside really, but this lab appeared to be where the “Qliphoth” was stored, and where the implosion nukes were to be placed. Everyone double-checked their gear and Gwen drew out the dagger her father had given her, the same that she had pierced the creature in the horrific vision with and nodded to Daniel. After a pin combination, retina scan and blood sample to confirm a DNA match, massive metal rods as thick as Daniel's thigh pulled from the right to the left, leaving deep, rounded holes in the door. Easily the biggest deadbolts most of them had ever seen...

Something was being kept in.

Part 2: Qliphoth

The door swung open with a haunting groan to reveal a massive cube room with bits of paneling smashed off the walls, ceiling, and some of the floor had been crushed in curved lines as if some massive anaconda had been thrashing around. The room was easily measured in panels on the far right marking off every tile of the room. Each tile measured five feet and every 50 there was a measuring line going to the top. It was perfectly cubed at 700 feet each side. At the dead center of the room, chained by massive, thigh-thick links that hooked into its flesh, loomed an anthropomorphic figure with canine features, massive tails, and scale patches on its shoulders, forearms and hips.

Everyone visibly tensed, taking sharp inhales of breath as if they all feared it would awake and strike just from them looking upon it. Its' jaw was agape, muscles flexed and tense, and a trio of ebony tongues with V lines leading back into its maw hung to the floor limply.

Embedded into the top of its skull was the hilt of a sword, a simple Celtic style hilt with a dandelion on one side and a thistle on the other. The hilt was flat with the beasts skull, but came out of its lower jaw and re-entered the body through the chest. Brilliant teal blue blood dotted with silver flecks oozed from the open wounds, staining the otherwise brilliantly inlaid Damascus steel blade.

“It's like a living nightmare...” Alexei said with a rapid exhale, speaking the very idea aloud left him breathless. But Gwen couldn't see a monster. The eyes were staring out toward the exit, pleading, even though motionless, for something. It wasn't fear for itself, it was fear _for_ someone.

“Probably source of corruption, samples from here exposed to something up there?” Dimitri asked as the group slowly began to advance. There were terminals surrounding the creature's corpse, safety stripes of yellow and black denoted the area where no part of the creature was to be moved from if not in a container, as per instructions painted on the floor, and made for a rather haunting autopsy site.

“I don't think so... Look at the eyes. It's afraid.” Daniel called out as they all moved to their respective areas at the console. “It's looking either at or for someone, and it's afraid _for_ them. I've seen that same damn look in the mirror”.

A silence overcame the group, they all had a similar experience and Daniel was right. It was an unmistakable emotion, even in the elongated face of the alien canine. Gwen took a moment to gather some data on the creature, everything down here would be destroyed anyway so she figured some light reading was in order.

The creature was indeed called a Zburator, though all the files here said they weren't demons but in fact some kind of deep-space sentient plant-based life form. This one, labeled in a language Gwen couldn't quite make out, had been found inside a chrysalis of liquid and brought back by Apollo 20. It had apparently been dormant until a few months ago when a new scientist named Dr. Shorae presented the blade hilt: _just_ the hilt. The beast tried to escape, damaging the facility in the process and consuming several members of staff via large mouths at the ends of each of its tails. In the end Dr. Shorae stabbed the beast in the skull with the sword, which appeared only when in close proximity to the creature.

Despite all the tests of taking blood and tissue samples, the laser-guided removal of some of the beasts spines for study, or outright weapons testing didn't seem to stir the beast. It did very much seem dead; a week previous an intern had the idea of checking for an energy pulse like a heartbeat for the brain and discovered an active current. Later tests revealed that the energy was actually coming from the sword impaled in its head, but all attempts to remove the blade proved fruitless.

Its body was described as a 'living metal' in feel, so dense and powerful was its muscular structure that hydraulic lifts able to lift an excess of a hundred metric tons had to be installed in the floor below to even move its mass around. Dimitri had been reading over her shoulder and noticed the note about its weight and density and decided to see this for himself!

“Ey this thing is supposed to be hard like Vadim's skull! This I have to see-” he chuckled and clunked his way over the safety line as Gwen read about times the body _did_ move; apparently associated with a concentration of energy facing toward one side of the beast at a time. As she glanced at the screen mentioned in the instructions she noticed a large focal swirl pointed directly at Dimitri's skeleton as he moved closer... but she was too late.

One of the beasts massive violet tails broke free of the restraints and lunged toward Dimitri with frightening speed for something of its mass. The tip split open like the ebony petals of a flower with five points all connected by a thin membrane of purple flesh, and sealed over the top of Dimitri's head coiling him back to the main body before anyone else could react.

“DIMITRI!!” Vadim reached for his grenade launcher as the mass went completely still with half of Dimitri's head still visible between the coils of brilliant violet iridescent flesh. Daniel slapped his hand on the top of the gun to push Vadim's firearm down, yelling for everyone to hold fire.

“If we do any damage to that thing it we could hit Dimitri! Hold on, look! He's breathing, he's ALIVE it's just... holding him!” Daniel exclaimed, as much as the group wanted to rush in they could see Daniel was right. The other two tails had not moved, nor had any other part of the main body, but Dimitri's breathing became gasps before the group could really study the situation further.

“Test test, is this thing- HELLOO WORLD~!” Dimitri's voice was drastically different, a Scottish accent watered down with British and much better spoken than he had been before. “This is going to sound _really_ weird but let me start with saying your friend is fine! I'm just using him as a translator since, you know, there's a sword in my skull”.

The entire group were slack-jawed in shock at this development, Gwen and Daniel giving each other incredulous looks of disbelief while “Dimitri” laughed and sighed.

“Oh come on, that was funny.”

With a great shrug Dimitri turned to look at the group, jostled about a bit and cleared his throat.“So here, let's recap really quick and if my info lines up you pull the sword from the stone and we get the hell outa here, _ey_ Arthur?” Daniel had stopped introducing himself as that years ago because he hated the whole 'king Arthur' jokes, long before he met the Russian trio. He stared at the beast, not Dimitri, with a smoldering glare while Gwen snickered off to the side.  
“Oh and as a show of good faith, I'll let Dimitri here explain it all himself!”

With that the coils unwound and released the man, though his hat had been soaked in slime everything was in one piece. Dimitri looked a little dazed but otherwise fine, looking between Gwen and Arthur with a scowl and a huff. When he cleaned off the goop from his face he squinted at the taste – citrus?

“Smells like an orange-” Vadim spoke, laughing as Dimitri nodded vigorously in agreement.

When he was cleaned up Dimitri took a deep swig of his flask, said something quickly to his brothers in Russian before turning to Arthur and Gwen. “Lady upstairs is BIG bastard bitch alien whore that we need to help this one kill, he say,... you see the other one, _RED SCALES_ , dah? What colour _his_?”

Gwen felt as if she needed to take a summer learning Russian so these broken translations would make sense, but she understood the part about the colour difference. Sure enough her and _Arthur_ both confirmed. The one in their shared hellish vision had scales as red as the ruby-red ocean of blood it loomed over, where as this one was violet and iridescent at the surface.

Dimitri nodded to the pair as understanding washed over the faces, pat the beast on its shoulder twice and motioned to the head. “Sword?”

“Sword,” Arthur echoed, crossing around to the front of the beast. The look of fear was haunting, he couldn't look it in the eyes but he had to put his foot in its lower jaw to get a good grip on the blade. “Sorry dude, that can't taste good...” he mumbled as he closed his fingers around the hilt. With a mighty heave the blade slid free with ease much to Arthur's surprise, sending him staggering backwards and clear of the marked hazard zone.

“Also we need to talk about this _Arthur_ thing sometime!” Gwen piped up with a little squint at Arthur. He just rolled his eyes as he caught his balance. The blade hummed, a single perfect note of honed metal that gave Arthur an odd sense of familiarity and recognition; he knew this blade.

For a few moments nothing happened, though temperature had begun to drop around the body. All at once the beast hacked and coughed, wounds hissing and popping as they rapidly closed and sealed. Its eyes rolled back into its head for a moment, flailing in a silent scream when it realized the hooks were embedded into its ribs through its back, shaky feet providing some relief when it stood.

A single shake of its massive tails freed the remaining two, all three going to work snapping each hook and twisting from the beasts flesh. When all was said and done it staggered three massive steps in the direction of the door and collapsed, the force shaking the ground under the group and causing cracks to form in the concrete. It was breathing, deep, focused breaths as its tails flicked about like an injured and annoyed animal, but it was alive.

No longer riddled with hooks and injury it was much easier to see that design of the creature was closer to that of a German shepherd along with the scale patches and tails. It had a lean build with decent muscle tone, if albeit a bit under weight, with a pair of bracelets, one on either wrist. The one of his left was nearly four inches wide, two bands connected by a large Celtic cross above and below the wrist. The one on his right was a simple inch wide, rounded band of some silver metal.

Dimitri, Vadim and Alexei had all grouped up with weapons at the ready while Gwen and Arthur just stared on in awe. The silhouetted version of the red one had been terrifying in ways they couldn't begin to put into words, but this one was almost beautiful. As they stared the beast's body began to hiss, steam rising off it before being completely engulfed. After a few moments where the massive anthropomorphic creature had been laid an elf, similar to the woman they freed upstairs. It still had the scales and tails from before, but was now a much more manageable size.

“ _Can I have my sword please?_ ” a much softer voice called out weakly, startling everyone with just how soft spoken he was. Arthur came forward, blade in hand, and knelt down with the sword. He laid it beside the elf, peering into brilliant emerald eyes. They lacked a pupil, only containing solid colour. “ _Thank you,_ ” he mumbled with a smile. As pale fingers wrapped around the pewter hilt of the blade colour rushed into his skin, a blush forming into darker pigments as he gasped deep and rose, supported by his tails, until his feet touched the floor.

“Oh he's naked-” Gwen blushed furiously and turned around, swatting at Dimitri who had burst out laughing. “Don't just CACKLE, don't you have emergency pants or something he can wear!?”

The other brothers joined in as they reached into the medical pack for some emergency clothes, but when they looked back toward him the elf had sprouted garments out of thin air! Baggy black cargo pants over matching combat boots and a muscle shirt that left his shoulders and the oval scale patches there exposed.

“I never leave home without a functional change of clothes!” the elf called out with a devious grin. “And I can bloody _FEEL_ the meta recording me as 'elf' and I just-” he huffed, ran a hand through raven-black hair and looped any locks in his face behind his ears. “My name is Cohras C'nohze, or _Lancelot_ in your language.”

Arthur squinted hard at this: Arthur, Lancelot, a doctor named Gwen _and_ a magic sword?  
“I swear if you tell me the sword's name is Excalibur-” Arthur stopped as Lancelot just grinned from ear to pointed ear, snickering.

“Well technically _no_ , the full name is _Caliburn A'Cohras,_ ” he said with a little flourish of the blade. The sword sung with soft, shifting notes while the elf man spun it about. “I'm honestly glad there's an Arthur in every generation, this planet would have been absolutely boned and half the universe with it if it wasn't for you!” he added while holding out a hand for him to shake. “You've done amazing so far, seriously. I'm not the protagonist here, I'm just trying to keep your story from getting infected and destroyed.”

Arthur shook his hand, the now shorter male was nothing to be intimidated by if looks were any gauge, but Arthur knew Lancelot's true form. That massive, massive beast weighing dozens of metric tons, yet his grip and firmness was no more than that of an average man when he squeezed. Lancelot took note of the confused look and he poked his lower abdomen.  
  
“I have a device that alters how much 'presence' my mass inputs on reality, the technology defies some of your understanding of physics so... how do I put this...” he paused, rolling his hands around _,_ flourishing the blade as he mulled over the wording. Only to speak with a moderately thick Scottish accent and a sly grin when he did. “It's a WEE bit of _Zburator_ magic ye won't understand~”.

Arthur found the joke far funnier than it should have been, a genuine laugh leaving his throat before he could react, tension melting from the group while Lancelot talked. It was weird, Arthur had the worst feeling of dread and death walking the halls before, but now...

“You feel determined.”

Arthur and Gwen had been thinking the same thing, the brothers had discussed the sensation a while ago among themselves but Lancelot finished the sentence in their minds out loud, then raised a finger to point at Gwen. “I think you have my book,” he added, turning to walk towards her. “It would have come to you at random, appeared somewhere only _you_ had access to? Glyphs engraved on the front and back?”

He paused, he could see she was about to deny every seeing it, but smirked.

“Every story you read out of it comes to life around you?”

Gwen's eyes went wide as he described the book, she had told no-one of its weird powers but kept it on her person at all times. Gwen nervously fumbled in her shoulder bag until she pulled the leather bound journal from its depths, holding it close for the time. “It's... so wonderful, all the stories and emotions and-!” she was cut off by Lancelot merely nodding slowly, one hand placed gently on top the book as she held it close to her chest.

“I know. It's magnificent, but it comes at a cost you can't pay.” His words were firm and serious, that fear for others returned to his eyes and Gwen's expression drooped. “Turn to the first page, read to them.” Lancelot stepped back and motioned to the others as he spoke, getting them to gather around.

As Gwen thumbed through to the beginning the trio rejoined the group where Lancelot had once been chained as Gwen opened the leather-bound book, it's parchment pages always smelled of ancient books and filled libraries teeming with stories. Even Arthur found himself calmed in the presence of this book. He stood to the left of Lancelot, with the elf between himself and Gwen, noticing a soft glow pulsing from under his shirt that resembled a cursive T that was also glowing on the cover of the book.

“It's called... the Creation of the Chronicler of the Eternal Nexian Multiverse?” she asked, Lancelot nodded once more. “It's... short. It could almost be a poem if someone took enough time to-” when she looked up everyone had gone. The book in her hands floated up, its pages snapping shut with a thud as it twirled on the spot and stopped with the front facing her.

“I was asked to tell you all the tale of how a Chronicler is made, but I will not! ” A booming voice echoed out from the tome, making Gwen reel back for fear of being struck. “I, Holruu, was stolen from the Beyond by that _beast_. I will instead tell you _his_ ascension.”

Everyone had been dragged to their own personal showing of this tale, a temple standing literal miles long, high and wide. A monolithic building that could have very well be where an entire civilization lived, but it only had a singular entrance ten meters high at the front. Before the door stood Lancelot, in his anthropomorphic form with tails lashing about and a polearm in his hands.

When the book spoke again it's voice came from all around, echoing slightly as they watched the building start erupting with dazzling explosions.  
  
“ _The being you freed is Determination Incarnate. He is an Embodiment, the Chronicler, and a species that should have never been borne into our realm._ ”

Though everyone was seeing their own version of the retelling, everyone couldn't help but grin. Something about the books rage and Lancelot's triumph in spite of it all was an infectiously good feeling.

“ _It is unlikely you've heard of a Chronicler, their entire existence is based around silent observation. They are The Being That Will Know All. A living creature that feels and breathes, and will record the entire history of a realm. A righteous mantle, one that requires anyone who has been called to arms to pass rigorous tests of mettle and will and prove themselves to the Multiverse. They were to prove that regardless the loss of life, regardless the joy of revealing themselves, they would remain unseen to all and simply observe the entirety of a Multiverse's life span... their reward, was precisely that. Total knowledge of the entire Multiverse._

_And then came along Lancelot.”_

The vision shifted, showing various puzzles and traps, all designed to kill, teach or break someone of an idea. Lancelot just pushed on through. Being impaled, stuck in pitfalls, even getting stuck in an endless loop that to him felt like a millennia only really contained him for a few moments.

“ _Cohras C'nohze” as he declared himself to us. He approached the temple, proclaimed he would take our brother Holruu and within the hour he arrived had done exactly that. He reduced an indestructible temple that had stood since time immemorial to rubble and flame._ ”

Lancelot sprinted through each challenge with a determined focus, crystalline cards launched from his hands sliced through each obstacle and seemed to grant him wild bursts of power and speed. The temple had three main guardians designed to only be defeated if the candidate passed every test; this was where he drew his blade. The sword cut through the titan-sized monstrosities like a hot knife through butter, deft swings and fluid movements made Lancelot impossible to hit. He may have slowed down on some traps, some puzzles giving him more of a mental workout, but every time he got to go one on one with the guardians of the temple, he danced.

“ _When we sought to teach Humility, he dazzled us with his Pride.”_

Tails raised high, glimmering like living amethysts with stars plucked from the night sky embedded below the surface, he swirled and moved as if he could see the battle laid out before him. Every attempt to stop him in his tracks with swings of massive arms or blasts of cosmic energy met with an even more impressive splash of colour and a well-timed taunt. He was expressive in every flourish and spin, laughing jovially at every successful combination of attacks or defeated enemy.

“ _When we sought to teach Observation, he blinded us with his Tenacity.”_

The second guardian fell like the first, only much slower. The second wanted to just wear this creature out, it was clearly only defending, biding time for an opening that never came. In the end Lancelot's second wind proved to be too much, torn limb from limb in a wild display of brutality. The joy had hardened into carnal enjoyment the harder they pushed the beast. Snarls and howls replacing whoops and cheers, his tails became more involved in the combat as they behaved like flail weapons.

_When we sought to test his Strength of Will... he overwhelmed us with his Determination_.”

When the final guardian faced him down what remained of the temple was reduced to flaming rubble and pulsing, destroyed runes. With the final guardian incapacitated Lancelot reached into their chest, his own rising and falling as he fought to catch his breath, and pulled out its heart; the same leather-bound tome that had shown up on her doorstep. The insignia on its pages burned bright orange over Lancelot's left shoulder for a moment before turning into a black tattoo.

As the tale ended, the group heard a final warning. This time it wasn't a singular voice, but many overlapping with a overall tone of concern and rage that shook the viewers to their core. Gwen especially, but she pursed her lips and grit her teeth in defiance of the authoritarian tone.

“ _Though he is not the Son of his Father, though Cohras C'nohze came from Chaos, he became a being of a singular purpose; to be Determined. Even if it warped to Desperation.”_

Silence overtook the room as the group returned back to the containment lab, the colours of their vision melting back into the chamber they were originally in. Lancelot was adjusting himself, flipping the cards everyone watched him use in the vision between his thin fingers now. None of them knew what to say, the scene they just witnessed didn't just convey a tale but instead every feeling and thought everyone in the story had been through. Both Lancelot and these “Meta” books.

Gwen turned to Lancelot first, a hand reaching for one of his tails to stroke over the smooth upper surface of the appendage.

“You're... not from around here, are you,” Gwen mumbled as Lancelot smirked to her. Arthur just shook his head and checked his weapon with a quick little motion and began preparing the implosion charges. Unlike Gwen he was not fascinated with the pretty Elven face at the moment; the scene he just watched gave them a baseline for what to expect in terms of combat ability from Lancelot and whatever thing was spending some alone time with the rest of his team.

Yet this... Chronicler, this _Embodiment_ was more concerned about whatever they left with the first group. As Lancelot explained, in _great_ detail about how the creature upstairs would devour anyone she could not convert, they were almost certainly dead, or worse, by now. The three brothers were at a loss for words, they just helped Arthur place the charges. Similarly more concerned about what waited for them on the way back than the current alien in the room.

“So... what _are_ you, exactly? That book-” Gwen began, nodding as Lancelot held up the tome as if asking her to confirm, “Yeah the Meta? Holruu? It called you three things; an Embodiment, the Chronicler and a Zburator. We know what the last is, that's your species, and the second is your job? ... But what about Embodiment?”

Lancelot's tails tensed and flexed as he thought, Gwen could see the gears rolling in his mind but couldn't discern the emotion from his pensive face. After a few moments he exhaled, collapsed his trio of tails into a singular unit and let it rest on the floor while he pulled a deck of crystal cards from under his left bracelet.  
  
“Explaining the Chronicler is easy, Holruu mentioned what a Chronicler was supposed to do yeah? A perfect hidden observer and all that? Well the Embodiment bit is...” he paused and pursed his lips and shuffled his deck, “harder to explain. Easier to show.”

“Pick a card,” he said as he fanned out the brilliant deck. The first thing she noticed was that the face cards didn't have matching images; instead it seemed like portraits, of very different people. Lancelot watched as she reached for the ace of spades and quickly slid the card away, chuckling nervously.

“Maybe not _that_ one...”

Gwen squinted at him, locking eyes as she swiped a random card without looking. Lancelot's face looked a bit concerned as Gwen felt a pressure rising behind her ears, her heartbeat became louder and louder, the rush of blood past her ears sounding like a river with white rapids running past her and... nothing. She took a moment when the intense build up wound down to look at her card, the ace of hearts. The card had a small woman in tight black clothing holding a brilliant red and white corgi in her arms, both the dog and the woman were staring at her and followed as she turned the card around.

“What the heck was that supposed to do?” Gwen asked, looking up at Lancelot only to find he was motionless. It was at this point she noticed she was sweating, a feeling of working out intensely washed over her before a blast of pure energy crackled through her veins. The feeling burned and caused her to twitch at first, like she'd been attached to a live electrical wire, but as that uncomfortable knot in her gut wound down she found herself excited.

All at once memories where she lacked the courage or drive to move forward rushed to her mind, what if she had just been a little more _determined_? What if she just... pushed past it all and kept going? Voices echoing the same sentiment filled her ear, speeches and battle cries and friends talking each other out of, and into, stupid things all in the name of “because someone told me I can't, I WILL”.

Lancelot was always unsure how people would react coming into contact with raw determination energy, but if the crackle of static and her hair raising was any indication, Gwen was doing just fine. Her internal surge wound down and time resumed for her, watching with mild concern as Lancelot grinned like the Cheshire from ear to pointed ear.

“Embodiment is a... a LITERAL term! You're not just a piece of it or _really_ determined you are the _source_ for it in reality you-” she paused, turning to the others, then back to him. “I can't even explain how I know I just DO!”

Lancelot nodded as a loud crash echoed from the door of the lab. “I'm glad you understand, I could use an Avatar to help with the brainwashed soldiers coming through the door,” he said with a little motion toward the entrance. “They're going to be pumped full of all kinds of enhancements by now, the- The uh _soldier_ upstairs doesn't waste time. She's real efficient at reforming people,” Lancelot huffed.

Gwen didn't know how, but words came to her, possibly from old books she read or stories locals told her on excavation digs, but a phrase kept repeating in her mind and she said it aloud; “Walk when you can, run when you cant.”

Lancelot turned to face her, the motto of his family and the basis for his determination was always a welcome chant before a fight. He grinned at Gwen, slid the bracelet off his right wrist and onto hers. “You're god-damn right.”

The brothers and Arthur still had over half the charges to place so Lancelot took the time to mention about how she and Arthur weren't the same as the ones from legend, but a sort of... repeated idea given flesh and bone in times of need.

It did, however, mean she access to some of that ' _zburator magic_ ' Lancelot had mentioned.

Another massive slam against the bulkhead door of the containment room drew everyone's attention up, the three brothers quickly wrapped up what they were doing and handed the controls off to Arthur. The tricky problem with this implosion tech was it needed to be told how much energy to give the initial reaction; otherwise they could end up destroying the entire mountain and revealing that a base had been there to any satellites in orbit. Arthur was the only one trained on using the sensors, so it fell to him to plan out the detonation sequence manually.

More slams, the door was actually starting to dent and warp, metal groaning and crying out as it warped. Lancelot just sighed, gripping the hilt of his blade with a clench, then relaxing. He had his dream team, the power of Gwenevier, the planning of Arthur and his skill in combat. Every piece was in place.

Gwen looked at her hands as the same glyph engraved on the cross-guard of Lancelot's sword between the stem of two dandelions burned bright under the surface of her hands; she could _feel_ the power but she needed it _outside_ , some kind of projectile or weapon! She scoffed and thought about how useful a minigun would be to fight whatever this thing was, the idea had barley formed enough to consider making a little quip to Lancelot before a surge of neon green energy erupted from her hands. The energy crackled along as it materialized an actual minigun made of some kind of polished metal, the gleaming silver surface of the raised sections in contrast of the black lines that wound endlessly along the ten barrels.

“W-HOW did I do that?!” Gwen had begun, hoisting up the long barrels of the massive gun by the handle on the top, brandishing the weapon with an ease that surprised even her, but Lancelot just laughed.

“You accessed the mind-forge of our little trio, when we're around each other you can tap into my power and use it to summon weapons to fight... although the minigun is new-” he said with a confused little squint at the long-barrel weapon. Easily six feet long total, the barrels themselves were four of the total length with the rest a smooth case with only a handle and trigger attached to the top.

A particularly loud slam brought everyone's attention back to the door, a massive curved dent now bowed out from the surface nearly a foot; it looked a lot like the lines on the concrete floor ahead of the group. Lancelot gripped his sword tight, flourishing the blade twice before he turned to Arthur and whistled sharply. He tossed the blade to a shocked Arthur and caught the thing, all at once the warm orange glow of the runes blazed brilliant neon teal, oozing power in the form of a mist that matched the lines in colour. Before Arthur could ask or question it, Lancelot had drawn a string of cards from under the ring of his left bracelet and plucked a 6 of spades from the air.

“She's here.”

Another slam made an X in the door now, one of the hydraulic pistons holding the door shut burst and sprayed fluid all over the floor before the whole thing took a third and final blow that sent it tumbling into the room. Smashing and rolling around, leaving great dents and gashes in the concrete as it flew, the thing careened wildly toward the group as Lancelot tossed the card in his hands ahead of him.

The card shattered and tinkled like fine crystal as the shards formed a ring Lancelot jumped through, quickly following in his wake and attaching themselves over his body. When he landed a gleaming cage of polished silver metal, shaped like the outline and veins of an oval leaf, encased the scale patches on his forearms and shoulders. Loops of the same Elven silver ran the length of his tails as well, a loop every foot that was connected to the next one by a chain at the four cardinal points, ending with the tips wearing a bladed hood that had a six foot long chain that ended in a trio of baseball-sized flails. Each shaped like a five-pronged claw reaching down with all the bladed fingertips touching at the tip.

And he spun.

Lancelot's tails locked together, the chain-whips clinked into a singular unit and collided with the door with enough force to change its direction entirely. Shattered fragments and the door itself embedded into the wall with a thunderous slam of metal on stone. Lancelot landed with a thud, concrete cracking under his weight while those tails split wide into a fan once more, the moment of separation sent a spark of energy down the three chains and ignited each flail with a blue-black flame that gave him an almost peacock-like spread of colour before it flickered away, leaving only the ends of the flails ablaze.

The hallway beyond was now just as corrupted and covered in blood, gore and bodies as the chambers upstairs, a sight that had Gwen's breath hitching before she clenched her teeth hard and held down the trigger. Bright neon green tracer rounds blasted the bodies and hallway beyond, Gwen had no intention of letting off the triggering until she could see where the bullets stopped moving back to the opening of the hallway that led there! Luckily she didn't have to wait long, the smell of burning arcane energy filled the air as she finally released the trigger only to hear the three Russian brothers whooping and cheering for the wanton display of indiscriminate firing of such a beastly weapon.

Lancelot wasn't watching the door though, and Arthur caught this little detail with a squint. He wasn't much one for swordplay but he gripped the handle tightly with one hand while the other typed away quickly. Arthur was almost finished, the enemy was trying to psyche them out, likely aware of the bomb by now. The sound of something tunneling caught Lancelot's attention, large, pointed ears flicking toward the ceiling above just before a large circle of cracks began to form directly above Arthur. Reacting quick Lancelot spun on the spot and launched himself into the air by contracting his tails like an octopus rushing through the water, colliding with a majority of the debris and a mass of glistening scarlet tails that erupted from above and took it with him as he arched over the research platform harmlessly.

Shouting could be heard between the two entities as they flew, Gwen could make out some accusations of betrayal from Lancelot but every slam of their powerful bodies sent shock-waves of force that billowed the air even from this distance. She didn't know if Lancelot could handle this, he had been on the brink of death only moments before! Determination or not, she couldn't help but feel the need to take action, already moving at a breakneck sprint in the direction of the writhing mass of tails and swiping claws.

The thing that had burst from the ceiling was no doubt the creature from her and Arthur's vision, writhing masses of blood-red, gem-tone coils were bombarded with pummeling from the silver chain-whips and violet tails of Lancelot... but she wasn't afraid. Arthur had finished his programming and set the remote, following Gwen in as she charged to get in range of the beasts.

The brothers had taken up a position to fire at errant creatures from the door but were also trying to use a couple of long-range weapons to try and aid the beast. Dimitri and Vadim argued and swore, unable to get a clean shot off as they watch the aliens fight with an intensity they had only ever seen from violet storms at sea. Waves of movement back and forth, circles and spin from Lancelot countering the straight-shot strikes from the red.

“He's not winning!” Vadim hollered out, looking around in his pack until his hands clasped the bottle of vodka, right beside their vial of the Zburator blood.

“Don't you even!” Dimitri called out as he caught sight of the look on his brother's face as well as him reaching for the small arm-mounted crossbow on his left forearm. “Leave the alien fighting to the alien!”

Vadim cackled out a mad-hatter laugh as he loaded an arrow into the crossbow and popped the cork off the bottle, downing the contents in one quick go. A long shot in the dark, Vadim's gamble paid off as a surge of energy bubbled up from the citrus-sweet blood coating his tongue and gave him a momentary connection to Lancelot.

“Ar' _kon. Demas!_ ” Vadim's thick accent called out, watching with glee as the arrow began pulsing with brilliant prismatic light before he launched it. The thing embedded itself into two of the creatures tentacles and pinned them to the floor as if it weighed several tons.

Each of the brothers whooped and cheered as their now aether-charged brother loaded another arrow and began firing down the hallway, they had tipped the scales of one fight, now it was time to tip another!

“You are INSANE brother!” Alexei called out as he pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed the thing into the hallway. All three of them seemed to be stuck in a state of perpetual near-insanity, knives and bullets flying down the hallway as each explosion caused a new round of whooping. This was the fight of a life time, all of them knew if nothing else, this could be a glorious way to die.

Lancelot wasn't exactly struggling to contain the other of his kind, but the help was greatly appreciated! It was keeping her mouth shut that concerned him; she could speak of the Ol'Tohrn and rebirth their idea back into reality if she seeded mortal minds with knowledge of their existence. Beyond all else that could _not_ come to pass. The blunt chain-whips collided repeatedly with the others face, hammering the joints of her jaws to keep the bones broken and useless despite her regenerative abilities. This was his only defense while he tried to come up with a more permanent solution, if even one phrase of the unholy Root commands escaped it would spell the doom of multiple universes.

Tails used in tandem with spinning kicks and rapid punches created a whirlwind of rotating blows to keep the female off her balance and on the defensive. The blur of motion accelerated as he swung the flails with hands, elbows and feet; flipping the blazing chain-whips around in a dizzying display of agility and power. Every time one of the ruby tails of the female lunged forward it was met with a pair of rapid swings in alternating directions that sent bits of black blood with silver flecks gushing from the wounds. He pummeled and smashed each advancing limb into gore that lit ablaze as it was torn away with the blunt force, blazing weapons.

Arthur and Gwen were charging toward the beast, watching Lancelot spin the chain-whips like a circle of colour that shot out, rapidly changing direction from time to time to take back any lost ground. A series of five rapid strikes always proceeded a massive, combined tail slam that at one point even severed an entire tail, but it was rapidly regrowing.

Just as the female Zburator was starting to heal faster than Lancelot could damage her, a whir of metal made Lancelot's ears flick back right before a hailstorm of rounds pierced into the thick hide of the female Zburator. The bullets shredding her tails into ribbons and pummeling the beast back. Nary a stray round struck Lancelot, who sprung back as the assault began only to pass Arthur as he charged in, Caliburn held high.

Between the onslaught of munitions and three swift slashes of Caliburn, the beast was dismembered and decapitated without Lancelot needing to lift a finger. Some parts of the body tried regenerating, Arthur and Gwen stuck around to snuff out the last signs of life while Lancelot returned to the center of the research area where the brothers remained. They had brought out stools and a bottle of vodka to pass around while periodically shooting reanimated bits of bodies that had tried coming through the obliterated door.

With a smirk and a roll of his eyes Lancelot turned to where he had been chained and stabbed for so long, reached a hand into the air and with a bit of effort materialized the true hilt of Caliburn. It was the same in appearance as the one Arthur now brandished, but the hum of the metal said that this one was special. With a little spin of the handle he stowed it inside a pocket and twisted the Celtic cross on his left bracelet, a portal of shimmering blue energy materialized in a spiraling swirl ahead of him and he smiled. He was finally going home.

“ _CYKA!”_ Dimitri's voice called out, causing Lancelot to turn back and look at the brothers once more. “That's it? You leaving us here with the big-bastard-bitch-lady?!”

Lancelot just laughed and motioned over to Gwen and Arthur, both looking like something straight out of a comic book as they finished eliminating the living parts of the Zburator's form. He just shrugged and shook his head, grinning from ear to pointed ear like a proud father.

“You don't need me, you got them.”

The brothers all just kinda shrugged and sighed, they knew this entity well enough now to know that he had corrected whatever caused the wrinkles in their story and was moving on to the next. That was the way of this … _Chronicler_. Vadim tossed a bottle of their home-made vodka at the lad, giving him two thumbs up as he caught the thing and uncorked it with a tail before taking a swig. The trio took a shot with him and watched as he departed with a bow.

As Lancelot vanished Arthur and the crew moved out, detonated the charge and secured every last scrap of material they had been sent there to retrieve. The loss of life was terrible, but at least now Gwen and Arthur knew they could set the world down a better path, with a little determination of course~.

_MISSION CLEAR!!_

**Entity Classification: Embodiment/Chronicler**

Specialty: _D e t e r m i n a t i o n_

“ _THIS is where you dig in and FIGHT!”_

Lancelot is known as two things, a Chronicler and an Embodiment, though the latter is almost entirely in control. An Embodiment is the source of all an emotion or state of mind or an idea; meaning without said entity, it does not exist naturally within the Nexus Multiverse. Lancelot's presence gives life to newfound drive and motivation, helping people push through doubts and fears to break the shackles of tyranny and war. It is an awe inspiring sight to watch a planet turn the tide and overcome great hardship, much of which Lancelot knows comes from somewhere outside the Nexus, so he gets directly involved at every chance he can. With the powers of the Chronicler he is able to tell when this is happening, and unlike every other Chronicler before him has taken an oath to be as much of a nuisance to these outside forces as possible. As he says “I'm just here to clean up this messy, messy script. The first draft was a load of crap, always is.”

“ _Do not go gentle into that good night,  
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  
Rage, _**rage** _against the dying of the light._  
  
_Though my day as Man has set flight, I did not go gentle into the Eternal Night;  
Hear me now, the Chronicler.  
Man no more;  
Tonight I _**soar.** **”**

**_**True Name** _ ** **: Cohras C'nohze**

 **_**Common Name** _ ** **: Lancelot Chronicler or Lace Charm**

**Weapon** **: Caliburn and 52 Pickup  
** **Species** **: Zburator  
** **Personality** **: Bold, highly curious, "Sensibly" knightly,** ** minor drinking problem  ** **, Foodie.  
** **Occupation** **: Chef/Massage Therapist at the Castle Brimstone resort  
  
** **Personality Expanded** **:  
  
** **Bold** **  
A lad of little inhibition, Lancelot gets straight to the point. He's suave and well spoken, but that vocabulary is often used to cut through the bullshit and get down to business. Bad guy monologing? Chance to attack. Person obviously too shy to flirt but clearly interested? He makes the first move. Lancelot may be a man of many words, but those expecting him to be all talk and no action are going to find themselves in a tailspin.  
  
** **Highly Curious** **  
Lancelot, as The Chronicler, wants to learn** _everything_ **about as much as he possibly can. People, cultures, customs, nick-knacks and doo-dads... he wants to know it all. He's gone to some insane lengths to acquire new information, and made some rather daunting deals as well.  
  
  
** **"Sensibly" Knightly** **  
With a sword like Caliburn one would expect Lancelot to help every damsel in distress and ride a horse into battle, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He's been around quite a while and, while he will do everything in his power to defend the weak and aid those in need, he's not about to sacrifice an entire village to save a singular person. He's calm, collected, and downright cold in the middle of a fight. Hostages are also not likely to dissuade him from a task, just make him all the more determined to finish!**

 **  
** ****Minor Drinking Problem** ** **  
Okay. I know it says minor but the guy has multiple flasks on him at any given time. At least five. He loves his drink almost more than he loves sex... almost. Alcohol is like candy for his species and this guy has a massive sweet tooth!  
  
** **Foodie** **  
When the battle is said and done, when times are boring or the bars are closed... Lancelot can be found with a grill and fresh ingredients cooking up some damn fine food, OR at a local restaurant sampling the local cuisine! He loves food, absolutely loves it. His incredibly high metabolism has his hunger just a mention away, so from a young age he learned how to cook and how to make even the most mundane, common dishes elevated to mouth-watering delights.**

**“ _You're already well up to date on what and who this creature is. Let me tell you his motivation._**

**_The Eternal Nexus is a multiverse like most others, though with such a brilliant spark of imagination giving life to the place, it was supposed to have a long and prosperous existence. Every possibility could be explored, it had the time, it had the resources... but something started infecting it. Whole universes' being consumed or corrupted like a cancer that spread throughout the host. It started in the form of the Ol'Tohrn, beings of incomprehensible madness and endless hunger that created the Zburator; they were to be their messengers of doom. Instead the process of consuming and replicating sentient life gave the Zburator free will of their own that they could fight back, and fight back they did._ **

**_With the help of the inhabitants of the Eternal Nexus the Zburator slew their creators, and the two who led the rebellion gave birth to Lancelot._ **

**_With more drive and determination than either of his parents combined, Lancelot's entire mission became fixing whatever inconsistencies with the stories he found, peoples lives were warped far beyond what they should have been and it wasn't their fault._ **

**_Where he should be a perfect observer, he has become the perfect obstacle for anything not of this realm.”_ **

**_-Holruu, Meta of the Nexus realm._ **


End file.
